4. At first we thought that the prize purse for the NZ EWS was $40,000. Then we looked again and saw the extra zero. Then we looked properly with our reading glasses on and realised it was $4,000. Still, not bad for a weekend’s work from Cecile Ravanel…

8. You can tell that the World Cup race season is almost upon us. Instagram is full of racers in gyms doing gym stuff. Manon Carpenter‘s got a job on her hands to defeat the invincible Rachel Atherton. Here’s hoping for an interesting contest in 2017…

A post shared by matt_wragg (@matt_wragg) on Mar 27, 2017 at 8:08am PDT

11. We’ve seen pics like this before. Usually taken at a trail centre where someone got bored and started playing on the verges of a fireroad. This pics’ a bit different; it’s not been tilted to exaggerate the steepness…

16. Does your bike not have bottle bosses, or bosses in the traditional location? Never fear, you too can still embrace The Spirit Of Enduro by copying what Peter Lloyd has done with his fully sprung Starling Murmur steel machine…

23. Exciting times here at mbr as we decide upon our Trail Bike of the Year 2017. Is this bike the winner? What is this bike anyway? All will be revealed next week. Best get down your newsagents now and camp out in preparation…